


give me your armor, and you can have my heart

by civilorange



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-06 06:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11030949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/civilorange/pseuds/civilorange
Summary: Falling in love is bad for business. So what’s Lena Luthor to do when she falls in love twice over?Or // The one where Lena realizes she's maybe falling in love with Kara Danvers and Supergirl at the same times, and doesn’t realize this isn’t a problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, I haven’t watched season 2. But, I have watches a bunch of clips handpicked by people who have watched it, so, that counts? Supercorp might make me actually watch it, eventually, after I get over all the nonsense that I know happens otherwise. So this is only loosely touching on actual season 2 episodes, and is just kind of, like, I don’t know—parallel?

You’re two people with names that define you.

They’re synonymous with other people, with deeds—good and evil—that aren’t yours to claim, aren’t yours to keep. Names given to you by people who thought they knew what was best, who thought they knew the score—and you suppose in some ways they do, in the beginning. Before you grew, and grew, and grew too large for letters on golden plaques of desks, and she too large for strokes of red upon a chest.

“You look tired,” you say with all the empathy afforded to a woman at the top of the world—afraid not of the glass ceiling above you, but the shattered glass below that you’d hit at terminal velocity on your rise. “I didn’t know supers got tired.”

She’s sitting on your couch with a posture that’s probably supposed to be self-assured, supposed to be centered and absolute—but you see it in the blue, blue of her eyes that she’s anything but. See it in how her cape’s snagged beneath her because she forgot to coil it around her fist and move it side. See it in how her foot has rocked so far until she’s rolling her ankle in the most subtle fidget.

“We do,” she replies, “You know we do.” Like it isn’t something fantastically new for the world to know. Blinking slowly and leaning back—you wonder for a moment if she too is scared of the shattered glass on the floor far below. Or does flying imply she’ll never fall?

That seems dreadfully silly to think.

“Long day?” You ask.

“Long life,” she says with a smile that says it’s not a horribly dreary as it implies—her head falls backward and she’s looking at your ceiling with the kind of searching gaze you wish she’d turn on you. She’s resplendent—she really is, and you have to bite your lip to keep from saying it. She’s a feast for your senses, and if you breathe deep you know there’ll be the slightest hint of zest in the air when she had just been.

“Tell me about it,” it’s the mundane kind of conversation that best friends and married couples have—as you’ve never had either, you’re not sure what to do with yourself. You feel like a different person all together, a feeling that flits to life at the best worst moments.

“I’d rather just sit,” she says while rolling her neck to look at you out of the corner of her blue, blue eye—smiling tiredly and openly, and you want to tell her to take all the times she needs. Eternity and a day, if she needs it. But you just hum, because you’re a coward with a fickle grasp on your own feelings, and turn back to the large touch screen laid out on your desk. Some ridiculous combustible engine that was more steam punk nonsense than actual design—your R& D department must really be having themselves a laugh at your expense.

* * *

“I don’t know why it’s so _hard_ ,” she all but whines while letting her head thunk onto the desk.

You smile around a mouthful of lettuce—hand raised to cover it because it really would be the most unflattering picture to have put on the cover of some dirt-rag tabloid. “I’m fairly certain it isn’t,” you say, and resist the urge you have to comb fingers through her blonde, blonde hair. She’s still face down on the questionable clean plastic of the table, but her huff of indignation makes you continue. “Your sister wouldn’t have invited her girlfriend if she didn’t think it would go well.”

Navigating the minefield of a family that actually _liked_ each other was a novel concept to you—but you can see how it’s dragging her through the coal. Another long suffering sigh is uttered into public plastic until she’s tilting her chin and looking balefully up at you through thick lenses and blonde strand of hair. You want to say _she’ll love you_ , because _who doesn’t_ —but you can only watch as she mulls through her thoughts. A hint of pink on her cheeks that you absolutely don’t find endearing—you do—and a little scrunch of her nose that you just want to worry away with your thumb.

“Okay,” she says with an adorable finality, nodding a little and sitting up straight. Her cardigan is rumpled, and her shirt a little askew—and maybe you’re staring for just a little too long, because she’s glancing down and settling them both back into place. “You’re right.”

You grin, “I usually am.”

“Humble too,” she deadpans all the while unable to keep the grin off her lovely face.

“But you know what would make you an even _better_ friend?” She hedges, leaning forward on both elbows, fingers touching the rim of her glasses to set them back in the exact place they already were.

“Better than a friend that brings you three orders of french-fries in the middle of the day because you texted them that you were having a _meltdown_?”

“Mhm,” she hums without pause, finger spinning the empty fry container while softening a little in her blue, blue eyes. Any softer and you think she might simply collapse from lack of stability. “A _better_ friend would come to game night too so that it’s not, like, weird. _Bad_ weird, not _good_ weird.”

You blink—maybe one too many times, because she tips her head in that adorable way that reminds you of a golden retriever—and try to suss out exactly why your hearts beating a little faster.

“I don’t know, Kara.” You begin, though you’re not given much of a chance to continue, because her hot palm is over the back of yours, and you never realized _knuckles_ could be an erogenous zone.

“Please, Lena?” Face already set to plead, and your traitorous heart stumbles a little on its way to making you feel the complete fool.

(You’re gone on her, but you won’t admit it for a while yet.)

“Fine,” you concede, resisting the urge to upturn your palm and lace your fingers together. “But I want buffalo chicken rolls.”

“Done.”

* * *

It’s strange to see her against the backdrop of your own balcony—the blue and red of her suit garish against the monochromatic _modern-ness_ of the whole thing. You’d house hunted from three-thousand miles away, and it’s hard to pick someplace when viewing it through an iPad. It had all been flat surfaces and expensive arches, but it wasn’t until you’d gotten the view out of window that you knew it had to be yours. The lights of National City are mirrored back to you from the flat surface of the ocean—it’s only the farthest edges of the harbor, but the water is dark and deep, and it makes something release in your chest looking at it.

“I’d kill for a view like this,” she says, leaning against the railing, hands dangling.

“Do the masses know the only thing standing between them and a morally ambiguous superhero is a beach front property?” You ask, two glasses of wine in hand—the vintage somewhere near the turn of the millennia—you have a wine guy, you don’t need to actually know for yourself what a good year it. It’s just pretentious to wax poetry about massacred grapes from a certain year. Give you an hour, a bag of grapes and a hammer and you’ll make your own vintage—fermenting them would be a little messy, but you’re open to new things.

“A beach front property with _this_ view,” she replies, turning to smile over her caped shoulder at you—there’s something mischievous in blue, blue eyes. “I’m not easy.” She all smooth lines and tight muscles, confident in a way that’s terribly attractive. You saddle up next to her and extend the glass—she takes it with another smile. A _different_ smile.

“Heaven forbid I suggest otherwise, can’t let National City think their hero’s a strumpet.” You intone, deadpan serious, but you can’t even maintain the façade when she snorts out a loud laugh—a genuine _snort_. You feel like that goes against whatever brand image Cat Grant had in mind when she named the Maiden of Steel.

“Did you just call me a _strumpet_?” She asks with all the incredulous aplomb of someone who isn’t quite sure they heard what they heard. “I’m pretty sure you just called me a strumpet.”

You don’t say anything. Maintaining your air of quiet class by drinking deeply from your slightly over large glass of wine. She arches a brow, obviously wondering how long you’re going to avoid the question by drinking—looking a little _too_ satisfied when you have to come up for air.

“No idea what you mean, Supergirl.” You lie glibly, grinning all the while—you like when she smiles like this. When the edges of her blue, blue eyes crinkle just so and her whole face slants perfectly into utter contentment. “You really must get your hearing checked—isn’t it supposed to be _super_?” You’d swear her cheeks go pink—for just a moment, barely a blink of the eye—before she’s looking back out over the water.

“It really is nice.” Soft, faraway—a tone that makes you wonder what she’s thinking about— _who_ she’s thinking about. Because you’re not looking at the multi-million dollar view—you’re looking at someone make of stardust and constellations. Someone with eyes so dark in the night, they look like they could have the entirety of the night sky within them.

(Can someone who flies fall in love? Or is the indignity of falling reserved for mere mortals?)

“Gorgeous.”

* * *

She doesn’t sound alright—despite what she actually says.

Every molecule in your body says you should let it be, continue to exist in a place where words have more power than what is _underneath_. It doesn’t matter how you feel, it only matters how you look. You stare at your phone for the longest—waiting for it to ring again, waiting for her to open the door so that you don’t have to _fight_ yourself. So you don’t struggle with this decision on if you should—be someone other than who you’ve been told to be your whole life.

Be less a Luthor—and more _Lena_. Whoever that is.

In the end, it isn’t much of a choice at all—you’re loaded down with more grease than you’ve allowed yourself all week and you’re knocking on her door. There’s a _bang shuffle_ from inside and then she’s pulling it open wide to blink eyes just a little too misty for your liking. There’s half a thousand excuses on the tip of your tongue—you’re dressed for the office, so it’s obvious you came from work, and it really is quite the drive. _I was in the neighborhood_ , or _didn’t we have plans_ —anything to explain away the tight _something_ in your chest.

What comes out is honesty, and it’s the strangest feeling on your Luthor tongue.

“You didn’t sound okay.” Unspoken is the _I’m here for you_ , and the _do you need me_ that you’re desperate to ask—but if anything her blue, blue eyes water a little more and her lip snags between her teeth. She’s dressed in pajamas, and her hands are lost beneath too-long sleeves—you resist the urge to reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I can—if this isn’t—I can leave?”

You don’t like uncertainty—it tastes like ash and feels like an electric current.

“No!” She’s quick to assure, and the line of your shoulders relaxes a little as she opens the door to let you in—bag of food on the table, and you can barely turn before she’s tucked into you. Her arms around your middle, her crown just below your chin—she’s shaking, a shiver through every part of her, and you can only wrap around her as much as you can.

“Shh,” you sooth, running a hand up her spine—splaying fingers across her shoulder blades, your nose tucked in behind her ear as you hold her tight. She’s solid under your hands, almost scalding to the touch, and you don’t want to get too used to this—don’t want to think anything untoward, anything beyond comforting your friend.

“I almost lost her,” she murmurs, voice wet and eyelashes brushing the side of your neck. You suppress a shiver. “I almost lost Alex.”

If anything your hold on her tightens, you pull her in—you’d break yourself around her just to save her the pain. Shatter to pieces in her place if you could. “But you didn’t,” you assure her, _remind_ her, because sometimes it’s easy to forget that not everything is a downward slope—not everything is crashing, and burning just to keep yourself warm. “You didn’t, darling.”

You don’t know where the endearment comes from, but it feels _right_.

Your lower back aches from where it’s pressing into the table, your feet hurt from the heels you’ve had on since seven this morning—but you wouldn’t move for the world. You’d stay here until sunrise if it meant you’d continue to feel the slow inhale and exhale of the woman in your arms. She leans back a little—not enough to remove how she’s pressed into you from thigh to chest—but you can see the blotchy redness of her cheeks, and the wetness in her eyes.

“I didn’t.” She agrees, like she’s finally accepting this—finally bringing it inside where it’s been so hard to acknowledge. She _didn’t_ lose Alex. You don’t have a sleeve to use, don’t have a jacket—but you run thumbs under her eyes and over her cheeks, slicking away the wet until she’s leaning into your palms.

( _Kiss her_ , your traitorous brain whispers.)

“I was about to watch Game of Thrones?” The little upward pinch to the sentence makes you smile—the eye crinkling smile she gets from you far too often. “Bingeing for season seven.” There’s no real question in there, but you’re nodding eagerly—you don’t watch Game of Thrones—and she’s getting you something to change into that isn’t a skin tight sheath and four inch Jimmy Choos. It’s a charcoal sweatshirt with a strangely Nordic wolf with _winter is coming_ underneath—but it’s soft and smells like her.

It isn’t until all the food is gone, and you’re four episodes in that you realize she’s curled into your side—her cheek on your shoulder, her fingers curled through yours. It feels _right_ , and makes your heartbeat jumps just a little. Something pivotal is happening on screen even if you don’t know what it is, and she finally turns her head to grin up at you—chin on your bicep, eyes bright behind her lenses.

“You have no idea what’s going on,” she accuses with a smile.

“Not in the least.” You agree because you’d watch all the seasons of this Dungeons and Dragons show if it meant she’d smile at you like that.

“We can watch something else,” ( _kiss her_ , you brain reminds) her eyes crinkling, her smile widening.

You lean forward until your forehead is against hers, “No, this is perfect.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know if Lex was physically in the show, but here's my version of him. The last chapterwas supposed to be a one shot, but I'm horrible at following instructions - including my own.

Like children playing a game with unspoken rules.

You don’t talk about it.

No, the approval for a chess set is given a week in advance, and whatever guard roster is shuffled around to give peace and quiet. The staff watches you like an interesting predator—something with flashing teeth and sharp eyes. They have all their preconceived notions, their holier-than-thou beliefs of what it means to be a Luthor. So it’s easy enough to play along—to play at being the person the world already assumes you to be.

He’s grown pale in the long stay in the dark, his skin just this side of dirty, acne breaking out along his chin and nose for the first time since he was freshman in high school. They don’t let him have contacts, so his glasses are Government Issue—large and brown, with thick plastic lenses—and his teeth don’t have that luster that regular whitenings promise. A little receded at the gum from harsh bristles and cheap toothpaste.

You’re always already in your chair—no bag, it’s confiscated by the front office the moment you enter—and a dress that is leagues away from something your mother would wear. The type of things that fill your closet and then some—that you feel constricted and yet _yourself_ in. Everywhere that he’s folded and rumpled, you’re crisp and clean—hair perfectly coiffed, contacts in place, skin flawless. Your dress garishly printed—one that’s a little too _spring afternoon_ for your typical taste—but you’re making a point.

And the game begins.

“Are you doing something different with your hair, Lex?” You ask with no aplomb, just the slow slither of eyes as you tap the metal table between you and your captured brother. Bolted to the floor—table and chairs both—Lex always has to wait for the guard to tether his chain through the ring and leave, before he can settle down properly.

“Absolutely,” he drawls with all the charm in his thinning and slouched body. “I’m going _au naturale_. So much better for the planet.”

Lex doesn’t mention that there’s two more attempts at your life lined up—and you don’t tell him how the last two went. It’s the strangest thing to love a monster; to feel that crippling relief in your chest to see that he’s alright, while also wishing to dig nails into his pencil thin neck and choke the life from him. You’re both dangerous children playing dangerous games—new players have stepped in, taking up sides and weighing the odds, but siblings connect on a different level.

Even across lines in the sand.

“You always were quite the tree hugger,” you’re both slotting chess pieces into articulate plans—queens, and kings, and all their little pawns. Tapping the table in lieu of a timer, you don’t ever really care who wins this matches—they’re split pretty evenly down the middle.

“Does your friend know where you go every Thursday?”

 _Tap_. “I’m very popular,” you intone, moving both your rook and king to castle the pieces. “You’ll have to specify which friend.” It really doesn’t matter, because no one knows where you go Thursday afternoons—it’s a black out slot in your schedule that just exists and no one—save Jessica—has had the courage to ask about it. No, meetings slant around it, and whispers break when you enter rooms Friday morning.

“Oh, this one’s pretty special,” he grins, not-quite-white teeth prominent, while he slides his bishop forward into the breach of your pawn line and snags your knight. _Tap_. “I’d go so far as to say _super_.”

Looking up, there’s a break—a moment—where you’re both just siblings. Talking in circles because sometimes that’s easier—sometimes that’s safer. His light, light eyes are still sun mad and glassy, and you don’t think his captivity is helping much with the chittering devils in his head—you wonder if they’re telling him to kill you right now, if he can look at you without that burgeoning madness that crawls just beneath his skin.

“Supergirl couldn’t care less that I visit my manic sibling,” you think she’d tell you not to—to tell you that he isn’t worth the trouble, that some people can’t be saved. But you also think she’d understand—it’s something in the sadness she carries sometimes. Like things are impossibly heavy, even for her impossible strength. Your queen chews through his rook and sits pretty on the opposing back, “Check.”

 _Tap_.

“You fuck her yet?” He asks crudely, looking at you and not the chess board.

“Check.” You say again, and refuse to look up—jaw clenching, before you remind yourself to _stop_ , to cool down and ignore the little spark in your chest trying to ignite.

“She’s your type, isn’t she?” He goes on, “You always did like pretty little blondes.”

You don’t say anything, don’t give him anything—leaning back in your cold metal chair and watch how he dissects every mannerism. He’s a vulture, looking for little promises of weakness to pick at, and pick at until there’s nothing left but bleached white bones and a jackal grin. He tips his chin like he’s seeing something, like he suddenly _understands_ something—you don’t like it, you never have.

“She _is_ ,” he’s gleeful, grinning wide in his own special brand of lunacy—the game forgotten, _tap, tap, tap_ —his fingertips against the circle in the middle of the table, the chains around his wrists clattering. “Oh, little sister.” He breathes out, like you’ve finally disappointed him.

 _Bang_.

Standing up, hand slapped flat on the table, his eyes a little wide as he looks at you anew. You’re leaning forward until you’re almost in his space—his light, light eyes caught by your gaze, his lips slowly slagging into something that isn’t glee and madness. “Remember how you always had to convince me to play games when we were children?” In, out—in, out. You’re breathing slowly, focusing on the air filling your lungs and pressing your ribs outward.

“You’d tell me all the fun we’d have, how I’d love it—and you _always_ got me to play, _always_. Chess, tag, hide and seek, whatever. I used to love that about you, Lex—my big brother who always had time for his baby sister.” He’d made your childhood good—he’d have tea parties with your stuffed animals, and watch stupid cartoons. You _worshipped_ him, you wished to everything that you’d be exactly like him.

How times change.

“Well, you’ve done it again, brother dear.” You relay, standing up and flicking his king until it topples off the edge of the board and falls to the ground. This game of his—this deadly chase of cat and mouse, of life and death—it’s league away from chess, lifetimes from tea-parties. Smoothing down the front of your dress, something in your chest hurts—because you love this monster dearly. Love him like a moth must love the flame. “I’ll play.”

Dangerous children play dangerous games.

* * *

You don’t expect anyone this late.

The security guard in the lobby assures you that everything’s been closed up tight, all the elevators save one have been shut down and the motion detectors on floors three through thirty one are undisturbed. You smile, offer him the bagel you’d picked up on your drive home and head up to your office. You don’t have any early meetings on Friday—don’t have many at all, seeing as how half your department heads are taking holidays to watch their children graduate. You don’t begrudge them their happy families, their lives outside work—it’s what you imagine at night just before you fall asleep, just after reality slips away just a little and you can pretend.

“You seem to make a habit of staying this late.” She says from the balcony—you turn just quick enough to see how gently her boots touch down. The _control_ it must take to accept gravity once more, to shake off the freedom of _flying_. Her cape cracks in the wind of being so high and her hair tangles just at her ears—she looks more disheveled that usual. There’s not as much _pluck_ as you’re used to—as you’re sure the masses are supposed to infer is a constant trait of the Maiden of Steel.

“How else am I to entice you into stopping by?” You say knowing how your lips are curving into a lopsided smile— _you fuck her yet_ ringing like klaxons in your ears, but you’re deaf to them. She steps inside off the balcony and shuts the door softly behind her—all loose limbs and soft shoulders. There’s no hands on hips, no up-tilted chin, no clenched jaw—you like this, you like _her_. Like seeing the edges smooth away, even if it is only a little.

“A full night’s sleep is important.” She says it like worry, and you really can’t help how your heart skips just a little. A quick little thing banging away in your chest.

“Are you saying you’ll stop by if I’m in bed?” Lopsided smile curling all the way to a grin, leaning back in your chair that’s far too comfortable for its own good. You’ve fallen asleep at your desk far too many times because of it. She raises a hand and snags it through her hair, the curls winding and straying through her fingers and— _you always did like pretty little blondes_ —you can’t help watching the movement with rapt attention. She’s rubbing her neck like you’ve made her nervous and it’s utterly charming.

“No, I’m—I’m trying to say you should—get sleep.” She’s not _stumbling_ , per say, but she’s rewording like she’s still not sure what she’s trying to say. (S _ay yes_ , your brain implores wordlessly). “A full night’s sleep.”

She’s walking closer as she always does—like she’s tentatively touching the outsides of your space—not afraid, not unsure, just looking for some indication that she isn’t wanted this close. Head cocked slightly to the side, she’s watching you for something—watching you in a way completely different, yet somehow similar, to your brother. Like there’s some grand indication of what you’re feeling in the lines of your face.

“I went to visit my brother,” you say—breaking the silence you hadn’t realized had taken hold.

She doesn’t hesitate to swallow those last few steps—you feel the whisper of her cape as she perches on the edge of your desk. “Are you okay?”

“As okay as can be expected,” you exhale, blinking back tears you don’t want falling—that you don’t want _at all_. “I keep thinking I’ll remind him that he used to love me more than he hated everyone else. Like maybe he’s forgotten along the way.” _But he hasn’t_ , keeps plucking around inside your mind. Like a horrible little remind—just as you love your monster dear, he loves you.

Just not enough.

“Oh, Lena,” she’s saying softly, and then there are hot palms on your cheeks, thumbs pushing away rebellious tears that refused to stay where they were bid. Her eyes look brighter through the wet of your eyes—bright and so blue. She doesn’t hug you, doesn’t wrap herself around you—but the hold she has on your cheek, and the side of your neck helps—it reminds you to be in this moment, and not any number of other ones.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you say, voice a little raspy and your own palms lifting to carefully trace away the last of your tears—mindful of your eyeliner. You know your _I’m fine_ sounds like you’re anything but, but there’s nothing you can do about it with your heart at the back of your throat and so many memories tainted. “Just—you’re right, I’m just overtired. Emotions getting the best of me.”

When you push your chair back to stand up—brushing down your floral dress once more, and not missing how her eyes trace and caress down your body—you’re half way around your desk before she speaks.

“It’s okay if you aren’t,” so soft you can barely hear it.

Turning to watch her over your shoulder—marveling in how National City’s light catch in the gold of her skin, making it seem like she glows. “Aren’t what?”

“Fine,” she supplies. “If you aren’t fine.”

You’re glad she doesn’t make chase when you shut the light and leave—and you think she knows that.

* * *

“They’re twins.” She says.

“But they’re having sex,” you reply, like this inherently negates her statement.

You don’t know how this began a _thing_ , but three weeks into _Game of Thrones and chill_ (you don’t think Kara knows what that means, otherwise she might not have named your Sunday nights together that). Every Sunday at eight, you find yourself in her apartment watching the fantasy juggernaut despite not knowing any major plot points that seem rather integral.

“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding her head enough that you feel her chin dig a little into your arm.

You don’t mind.

“And he just pushed a child out of a window.” In the _pilot episode_. The first few had been episodes in the middle of the most recent season, but she’s been delighted to start at the beginning for your sake.

(You think she was just looking for an excuse.)

Despite how you both always start on opposite ends of the couch it doesn’t last like that for long. By the time the episode is over she’s tucked under your arm—which you always sling across the back—and she’s playing absently with the _winter is coming_ sweatshirt you’ve basically taken as yours. It doesn’t smell like her shampoo anymore—or her detergent—which made you realize how much you relied on the scent.

You’re considering leaving it one night so that she mind wash it—or wear it. You should feel the proper fool, but it’s easier to sleep with the sunny zest that clings to her skin than any rain machine or sleeping pill.

“And that’s a big deal, believe me.” She’s eager, grinning wide and fixing how her glasses tend to slide to the edge of her nose.

“I imagine it should always be a big deal when a child is pushed out a window,” you deadpan, but she just rolls her eyes, and digs a knuckle lightly into your side. _Right_ where she knows you’re tickling.

“Well, yeah. But this is like _end of the world_ big.” Her eyes are a little unfocused, and she’s trying to cover the fourth yawn of the night. She looks tired—in ways that aren’t bags beneath the eyes and hunched shoulders. It’s bone deep and weary. You nod to her point and watch absently as she clicks on the next episode.

There’s wolves, and bratty children, and scheming aplenty—and it isn’t until half way through the episode that you speak. “So his name is Jon Snow, because he’s a northern bastard. Who are all Snows?”

No response.

Turning, you see how her face as turned into the curve of your neck—breathe steady and flat just below your ears. Passed out. Her fingers are curled into the sweatshirt just over your heart, and you wonder if she can feel it on her fingertips if she were to be paying attention. You know you should wake her up, coax her across the apartment and into bed—but you don’t _want_ to.

Maybe it’s the Luthor in you that’s selfish—that thinks she should stay right where she is, damn the consequences.

You don’t sleep—even as exhausted as you are.

( _You always did like pretty little blondes_ , your brother’s voice is a condemnation)


	3. Chapter 3

You father had some kind of bittersweet obsession with _the fall_.

He always said it in such a way that it grew, and grew, _and grew_ until it had become something all its own—some entity that prowled, and stalked, and waited for all manner of misfortune to spill liberally into the lives of those unfortunate enough to find themselves high enough that their bones would shatter and their blood would splash upon impact.

“The higher you are, my smart girl,” he’d say when it was just the two of you—the house quiet and the fire bright. He’d smile that smile that belonged only to you. You’d been eight, maybe nine, and he’d already made it rather clear what he expected of you—even as abstract as it was. _Greatness_ , after all, wasn’t awfully specific. “The longer the fall.”

All of eight, or nine, as you were you hadn’t much minded when he _talked_ —it was that special manner that was all folded in meanings that you didn’t really understand yet. You’d looked up at him, from where you’d been grinning down at the chess board between you and asked, “Do you have to fall?” It’d seemed silly—seemed such a strange absolute.

“Oh, everyone falls, Lena. Everyone.” Leaning forward on elbows, bent low until he had looked you in the eye and whispered his truth. “The make of a man—or woman—is in what you do to get back to your feet.” With all the gravitas of a confession—all the weight that you hadn’t been able to understand then—but you do now.

Your father had done abhorrent things to get back to his feet—he’d carved off pieces of his decency until there’d been very little of it left at the end. Loveless as a pauper he’d gone in the ground, cold long before he died. It’d been in that brittle control he wrapped around his shoulders like armor—that bright and shiny thing that had been absolutely meaningless when it was all said and done. He had tethered himself to something that would last beyond him—his name—and it somehow climbed, and climbed, and climbed until it found itself up there beside _the fall_ in bittersweet obsessions.

“The Luthor name,” he would say when bundling you close, your PhD forgotten already—only honors after your graduation—your thesis properly defended, your degree growing cold. “You’ll make it something great, won’t you?” It wasn’t until you were an adult yourself that you realized his fingers tended to lend themselves to being claws—curls sharp things that dug and tore and ruined.

“Of course,” you had said, with all the absent conviction of someone who didn’t know any better. Who didn’t know there was another way.

Not until Lex.

Not until your brother cut off pieces of his soul and sold them to the highest bidder—not until Lex filled all those empty places inside himself with manic hate, and foaming rage. Not until you sat across from him at the table and you recognized so very little about him anymore. What had he _not_ been willing to do to get back to his feet? What had he _not_ been willing to carve off himself until he was as high as he had ever been before?

Sometimes you think the mania is genetic—something cut down deep into their makeup that you’d been spared it simply by circumstance. That your Luthorless blood had saved you some unimagined fate that simply hadn’t showed itself yet. Or maybe you simply hadn’t learned what you were willing to do—hadn’t felt the cold stone beneath the flat of your back and considered something horrible to climb back to your feet. Hadn’t felt the bitter panic, and sour fear of needing to move forward, to reclaim lost ground.

* * *

“Wouldn’t a DBA be easier?” Your accounts manager asks without looking up from the long board table you’re sat at the head of—you’re months into hacking away at a company that’s existed in one form or another for _decades_ longer than you’ve been alive. It’s the monthly meeting of department heads and influential business men that make you wonder why you even bother. They’re the kind of people you’d never play RISK with—let alone Diplomacy—because you know they’d just as easily stab you in the back and live up to a promised peace.

“Easier, yes,” you intone, tapping half-polished nails on the table. You’d been toiling with your R& D department for the better part of the last two days, ironing out the kinks and errors in a heart monitor that would easily surpass everything on the market. “But easier is very rarely the way to go when faced with such—immense decisions.”

_Tap, tap_ — _silence_. You’re looking down your boardroom table and the eyes that stare back at you are absent and disengaged. They’re men who would rather let the world burn if it meant they could be king of some miniscule pile of ashes. You wonder if it was this disinterest that had allowed Lex to become as bad as he did, no leash the tether him to reality, to proper morality, because these men had simply seen your manic sibling as a means to some horrible—yet profitable—end.

“Amending all our patents alone will cost a fortune.” Dwain—from somewhere in the special projects division—says while closing a folder a little more harshly than needed. “Not to mention that people respond to brand recognition—the Luthor name is a household one, giving that away for—for—for _moral high ground_ is business suicide.”

_Tap_. You watch him—a man you’ve known since you were a child, though he’d always just been an awkward smile at company functions your father had made you go to—with a slithering kind of interest. You know it’s the _Luthor_ in you, the ruthlessness that had no proper place in any conversation that you couldn’t quite help. You wonder what the moral high ground would mean to him, if it was the only thing standing between him—and the door.

But you’re not your father, you’re not your brother—you’re a different kind of monster, you like to think.

“Sometimes all we have is moral high ground, though that’s hardly the point.” You’re done—with this meeting, with explaining yourself, with trying to be some watered down version of horrible men. A Luthor with a moral compass—how novel, how droll. “We’re swinging hard into medical advancement next quarter. A decision I made, mind you, with unanimous board support. I don’t want people to look at their bypass machines, or their heart monitors, and see a name synonymous with domestic terrorism.”

There’s more said—men and their lofty opinions that get entered into minutes, but you’ve checked out. Absently watching them bicker and boast, square geriatric shoulders that have never felt the pressure pushing down on yours right now. They leave—eventually—and the room feels suddenly more claustrophobic when it’s just you. Like the walls have remembered to push inward.

You don’t know how long you’ve sat there, until there’s a soft knuckle knock of the frosted conference room door, and Kara walks in.

She’s smiling softly, eyes a little squinted, the half-raised hand says all manner of _I don’t want to bother you_ , and you wish you could tell her she could never both you. That she’s _always_ welcome, because that’s how it feels in your heart. A little flutter when she walks in a room.

“Hey, Jess said you were in here and—I hope I’m not—she said I should come—check…on you.” She’s chipper, and bright, but her words start lingering toward the end—slowing, and growing vaguely hesitant, and you imagine it has something to do with the look on your face. All that pesky fluttering that you forgot to tuck away, because you’re hearts in your jaw, and your eyes are scratching, and she just makes you feel _better_. The walls feel less oppressive, and the choices seem properly made—and maybe that’ll change later, maybe you’ll realize how wrong you are.

But feeling better for a moment isn’t horrible, is it?

“Jess’ a worrier,” you confide, leaning forward and smiling—wincing a little at how your back pulls from sitting stationary for so long. “I’m fine, but thank you.” _For caring_ never quite makes it free, but that’s alright, because Kara must understand on some level what you mean because she’s moving to sit into one of the vacated chairs just to your side.

“Important meeting?”

Grinning, “off the record?”

Kara rolls her eyes. “Always.”

“You could say,” Kara’s pulling food from a bag you’re just noticing—things that really don’t fit into your balanced diet, but you can’t help how your mouth waters a little at the fried-chicken sandwich—with two extra cups a buffalo sauce. “We’re finally moving forward with the name change of the company.”

“It wasn’t already changed?” Kara’s eyes drift to the large L-Corp logo frosted onto the conference room wall.

“Slapping it on some signs is just aesthetics. We’re dealing with patent changes, and license agreements—a lot of paperwork comes with removing a name, apparently.” You’d filed the DBA as soon as the company had been informally given to you—put it through the courts until a more permanent solution could be made. It was the kind of thing that alienates a new leader when entering the trenches—but you don’t need the approval of the men flocking about with their opinions—majority is majority. The boards on too unstable a ground to think about willfully shaking the company’s foundation any more than it’s already teetering.

“So why get rid of it?” She asks it with a weight that you aren’t expecting—a weight that makes you stop for a moment and think about the little gaps that you know exist—Alexandra is her _adopted_ sister, that her parents are _dead_ , that she must have had some name before Danvers. Some piece of self that she got rid of—probably with legal forms and court rooms—and something clenches in your chest. Because—because—because Kara doesn’t deserve that, she _doesn’t_.

“Everyone’s asking me that. Why do it if it’s easier to just keep it and move on.” You shrug, and pick a french-fry from her plate. It’s greasy, and you know it’ll make your stomach hurt later, but just the little half smile Kara tries to hide makes it worth it. You don’t really have an answer—no, you do, but it’s cluttered and packed tight, and you can only shrug again and pop the French-fry into your mouth.

Eventually, half a sandwich later, Kara’s eyes too blue and too bright, you find something of an answer, even if it doesn’t feel satisfying. “It seemed like the right thing to do, I guess.” You can’t explain the suffocating pressure in your lungs, can’t describe the shiver up your spine or the ache in your knuckles. It’s all superficial and unimportant, but it _means_ something, even if you don’t exactly know what.

* * *

There’s nine police cars on the street far below—a ridiculous fender-bender that had three limousines and two town cars stalled for the better part of three hours. While sitting at your desk you’d wondered what the warbled _whoop whoop_ had been until you’d stood up and walked out onto the balcony and seen the little cop car salute each arriving cruiser with a blip of their siren. Police solidarity, ruining your concentration with each unnecessary arrival. The little dots that gather and spread are leagues away from amused, but they all don’t seem to be in a particular hurry.

The human condition, you suppose. Quickly going nowhere.

“It’s life or death down there,” you don’t hear the crack of her cape, even four-hundred feet up as you are, but you do hear the tongue in cheek amusement. “By my count six lawyers have been called.”

Turning you watch how she effortlessly hovers, ankles almost crossed, arms loose at her sides—you wonder if it’s more natural for her to forget gravity. Is staying on the ground what she must _remember_ to do.

“Well, it’s the American way, Supergirl,” you say, lifting your cup of coffee in mock salute. “When in doubt—sue someone.”

She’s smiling and softening—you notice how it takes a minute or two for her shoulders to loosen, for the rigid set of her back to settle. She’s touching down on the cement of your balcony and leaning her elbows on the rail beside you—looking down to watch the little specks storm about. You imagine she can see them perfectly—could hear them too—and you wonder if she feels a giant, despite her diminutive size. Does she feel taller than a sky scraper because she can see the imperfections of life on the ground from a mile in the sky?

A silence falls between you, and it’s nice—not the stifling kind that presses and twists until you _have_ to say something to break it, but a soft kind. Like this alien woman is perfectly alright with waiting for you to collect your thoughts. There’s just something about her that makes you say things you shouldn’t—or maybe just this you usually _wouldn’t_ say. Private things that can be used against you—truths and facts that are usually gossip and rumor at most without confirmation.

“What’s a name to you?” You ask, rubbing your thumb against the faint lipstick mark you’ve left behind on the rim.

Supergirl blinks—you’re not looking at her, but there’s a pensive confusion to her. A brief few seconds of _what_ in the pinch of her face, until she looks away—back down at the chaos below. “It’s what someone calls you?” She tries, shrugging a little too loosely for a globally renowned superhero. But maybe she feels it too—something like the pull in your chest every time she smiles.

“That’s all?” You’re not _pouting_ , but there’s definitely a huff involved as you drink the last bit of your coffee. “Nothing more poignant?”

“You’re still _you_ , even if you change your name.” She’s looking over your shoulder and back into your office where there’s at least six L-Corp logos etched into surfaces. “There’s that Shakespeare line. About roses.”

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” You smile, quoting one of the few Shakespeare lines you can remember off the top of your head—it’s up there with _fly, good Fleance, fly, fly_ , and the St. Crispin’s Day speech.

“Exactly.”

Exhaling a laugh, you turn so that your back is against the railing—watching how her blue, blue eyes fog a little, and how her shoulders roll forward and back, like she simply can’t _remain_. Can’t be still.

“My father used to tell me he was confident in two things—that everyone eventually fails, and that the name Luthor would be synonymous with greatness.” Toward the end he’d ask you questions that didn’t have answers—he’d scowl and demand you look at it another way; over and over, until you gave him a satisfactory answer.

“I can’t really disagree with the first one,” it’s been proving pretty accurate your whole life—billionaires and moguls alike falling on hard times that their ivory town skin couldn’t handle. “But the second? I can do something about that. I can strip _Luthor_ off every patent, every business card.” Like you were trimming the fat off the edges of a steak.

_Snip, snip_.

“Luthor’s pretty great from where I’m standing.” You turn to face her sharply, and she must feel the air, or had been watching you out of the corner of her eye the while time. “I mean— _you’re_ a Luthor.” It’s blatant, and Supergirl’s smiling—and the bashful blush on her cheeks looks familiar, like you’ve seen it before, and recently.

“Thank you,” you say, and mean it. You have the urge to lean forward and press your lips to hers—just to see if her lips are as soft as they look, or how exactly her jaw would flex—tight like a bow string, or sharp as a blade.

You even take a half-step forward, just a small one, just enough to feel the heat pouring off her. Supergirl moves until she’s close enough that your shoulders can brush—tiny little moments that you know you’ll cherish on the night’s she doesn’t visit.

But you stop whatever your heart demands you do— _kiss her, kiss her_ —because you can only picture Kara curled up on the couch. The colors of the television splashing over her face—over her beautiful smile, and her expressive eyes. It feels like a betrayal, somehow, and you can’t pin point exactly what it is—you’re not _dating_ Kara, you’re not _anything-ing_ Kara—but it still feels wrong.

But so wonderfully right when Supergirl touches your cheek with light, light knuckles. A brush of her fingertip over your bottom lip until she’s retracting the touch. You need to leave. You need to leave now before you make a decision that’ll begin crumpling everything.

“I should head out. Maybe get close to eight hours tonight.” You comment while standing up and cracking your back.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she grins.

Waggling an eyebrow and sliding open the glass door leading into your office. “You’re welcome to stop by my bedroom anytime.” You say over your shoulder.

“Maybe I will.” And then the crackle of a cape in high winds, and silence again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! You can find me on tumblr @ **civilorange**. Prompts, comments, questions; and I tend to just reblog nonsense. 8)


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